Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 4
By Huseyn Valiyev - Trend:
The Azerbaijani Ministry of Communications and High Technologies is preparing to take the preliminary measures before the broadband Internet development project is implemented in the country, Azerbaijani Minister of Communications and High Technologies Ali Abbasov told media Sept. 3.
"This project implementation is delayed for technical reasons," Abbasov said. "But today there are no unresolved issues."
"We are planning to take some measures envisaged by the project in the near future," he said. "In particular, the tenders will be held to attract private companies."
The ultimate goals of the project are to provide the entire country, including remote rural areas, with high-speed Internet in the range of 10-100 megabits second and to bring the share of broadband Internet users up to 85 percent. This will allow Azerbaijan to reach the level of developed countries by 2017.
The total project cost is estimated at more than 450 million manats. The project will cover 2014-2016.
According to the plans of the ministry, all settlements of Azerbaijan will be provided with high-speed Internet until 2017.
Around 100 million manats were planned to be allocated from the State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ) in 2014 to implement this project.
SOFAZ was established in 1999, and its assets at that time amounted to $271 million.
Based on SOFAZ's regulations, its funds may be used for the construction and reconstruction of strategically important infrastructure facilities, as well as solving important national problems.
As of July 1, 2014, SOFAZ assets increased by 4.86 percent amounted to $37.622.4 billion compared to early 2014 ($35.877.5 billion).
The official exchange rate is 0.7844 AZN/USD on Sept. 4.